The benefits of being kind. ..a much better love life!

YOU might think that altruism is a mark of selflessness.

But people who give up their time or money to help others are apparently reaping rewards for themselves... between the sheets.

Men and women who are more willing to donate cash or help a stranger in need also have better love lives, a study has found.

Researchers discovered those who frequently do good deeds are more likely to have more partners and more frequent sex.

They said their findings support the theory that altruism evolved as a means to help entire species survive – not just individuals. Canadian researchers asked more than 800 people, over half of whom were women, about their relationships.

The participants, who were on average in their 20s, were also questioned about their acts of altruism, from helping a stranger push start their car, to helping someone with their homework.

Then they were asked to evaluate their own attractiveness. Finally, interviewees were also quizzed on whether they would donate their fee for the test to charity – as a test of their true altruism. The study, carried out at Nipissing University in Ontario, concluded: ‘The present study provides the first empirical evidence that altruism may tangibly benefit mating in humans living in Western industrialised society.

‘Previous studies have investigated whether altruists are more attractive than non-altruists, all else being equal.

‘The present study is the first to show that this may translate into mating success, in that altruists had more mates than nonal truists. This supports the idea that altruism might be a signal of desirable qualities and could have evolved in part via sexual selection.’ Researchers also found that men benefited most from their altruism, with more sexual partners.

The paper, published in the British Journal of Psychology, said the results supported ‘previous research on various hunter-gatherer populations, which have focused on food sharing by hunters among non-kin as a form of altruism, which show that men who hunt – and share – enjoy greater reproductive success’.

Altruism has been seen as key to survival for most species – even to better health – because it improves feeding opportunities and creates less stress.